Fault Tolerance of Multihop Wireless Networks

This paper analyzes fault-tolerance over the entire design life of a class of multiple-hop wireless networks subject to both node failure and random channel fadings. It also examines the benefit and cost of feedback in network operations. A node lifetime distribution is modeled with an increasing failure rate, where the node power consumption level enters the parameters of the distribution. A method for assessing both link and network reliabilities projected at the network's design life is developed. The link reliability is then used to allocate active nodes to clusters using dynamic programming for maximizing the network's fault-tolerance, and to establish a re-transmission control policy that minimizes an expected cost involving power, bandwidth expenditures, and packet loss.